morning and the blizzard of 2016 not going anywhere yet. just about an hour ago we heard from dc mayor muriel bowser and her big message, this storm is not over. even the snow plows are getting stuck as you can see. officials are still very much in the emergency phase and warn everyone should still stay off the streets. we're going to have much more from her prens conference coming up in just a little bit. it is a snow day today but we're here for you to let you know what's happening in your neighborhood and around the area. just as important keep letting us know what's happening in your neighborhood and around the area. i'm steve alongside maureen umeh. >> as we continue our coverage of the epic snowstorm. gary mcgrady and tucker barnes have been monitoring this situation. and gary we saw the map a lot of that red and pink seems to be more out more white coming in, what does that mean?

>> we've got a little of the white and pink here the red is farther to the north and west. we're beginning to see more of the red full in to the south. i want to talk about something we've been seeing the last 30 minutes or so. and that is the wind beginning to pick up a little bit in intensity. and the wind gusts you can see right here the wind gusts are 36 dc, quantico 37, nap lus 39 battle more 30. but more concerning to us here is we see more of the wind gusts around the area up over 30 miles per hour. so we've been talking about how as we progressed into the late morning hours and into the afternoon, the wind speeds should begin to kick up and that's exactly what's happening here. so in some places you've got straight-on almost blizzard conditions because we do have heavy snow back to the north and west. speaking of the wind gusts the peak wind gusts have been pretty far back out to the west of us. ocean city, a 77 mile per hour

wind gust. lewis, delaware 64 mile per hour. basically what you're getting is a snow hurricane. very, very impressive with those wind gusts. now, dulles has measured at 23.5. we're on the books now at dulles as the third snowiest storm in history, that is only behind the 2010 storm and the storm there in 1996 in january 1996. and we're still adding on to that for dulles. marshall, virginia, 20 inches. frederick you guys are up to 22. if you're up in frederick county send us a tweet. keep the tweets coming in. we still want the totals, we still want the pictures early and often. we'll try to get those retweeted

and favorited and all that stuff. tucker is going to talk more about the storm and we see it's beginning to pick up a little more in places in intensity. >> you got that right gary. i'm sorry. i've been at it for a while. wanted to call you steve. yes. gets right to that heavy snow as maureen mentioned, we're just referencing colors at this point. the darker colors is where the heaviest of the snow has been it's been hanging out to the north and west. you might have heard thunder between 6:00 and 7:00 this morning. we had several reports of thunder snow pushing up across the beltway. we heard it here in northwest dc montgomery county, loudoun county and the system really got off and running and that's when we started to see snowfall rates at 2 inches an hour. it's been very heavy all morning long to the north and west. through the city, it's a steady light snow at the moment but we have, as gary mentioned

starting to see signs of our storms reigniting. we had a dry slot earlier we're seeing indications of the snow picking up off to the south. we're not done yet we'll continue to see the snow wrapping around as our system passes off to the east later this afternoon pushes off to the north and east. so we are not done with it yet. our thinking is those heavier snow bands to the north and west they'll slide through the 95 corridor across southern maryland and the lower eastern shore later this afternoon. we're not done with the snow yet. we'll add several more inches and i think we're going to be threatening certainly maybe not the biggest storm at reagan national, but we could easily get to be number 2 or number 3 when things wind up. i think i saw a report at reagan national we're up to 16 inches and i think that is number 6 or number 7 on the list. we'll continue to add to the snow totals this afternoon. you may feel it but you see it

ebb and flow over the next couple of hours but the bottom line is we're going to have bands of snow heavy at times late this afternoon and we had a wind gust 45 out at dulles. we are not done with the accumulating snow. we've got 8, 10 hours before we call it quits. quantity to hear from caitlin outside. >> wow, the second shift already coming in. caitlin. >> all hands on deck. >> there she is. >> right now let's head to cleveland park. bob barnard. do you ever keep track of how many miles you cover in the morning? >> my fit bit is going crazy. >> reporter: we've been up to rockville and back into the city and we are right now standing in the middle of the cities, washington dc's newest pedestrian walkway, connect -- connecticut avenue. meanly it's people who are walking up and down connecticut

avenue. if you live anywhere in this area and you're brave enough or crazy enough we have finally found a place serving hot coffee. the fire hook bakery. the only place besides the tasty diner in bethesda that we have seen that's actually open for business. you folks at home you have all the coffee you probably want. we've been on the go since 3:30, 4:00 this morning and i've had a sip of water. take a look up connecticut avenue. people are here with their kids. you're going to see here in a man a man is going to cross the street with his kid. look at this. it's a wild scene here. connecticut connecticut avenue in the middle of the city. yeah there's traffic. who is this? >> this is justin? >> we're heading that way but we're not sure how bad it's going to get. >> reporter: you know the snow hitting your face is not all

that comfortable. what do you think so far of the blizzard of '16? >> pretty fun. as long as the power stays on we're good. >> reporter: which has been fantastic. the city said 1,600 or 1,800 customers were without power last night here in the city but it's all come back on and it hasn't been as bad as it might be. >> i haven't been tracking the weather that closely because we've been stuck inside with this guy and his brother. >> reporter: the fact that you have power, that's huge. makes it bearable. >> yeah, it would be pretty rough. >> enjoy. have fun. >> reporter: that's what we're seeing, people with their dogs, people with their kids, getting out and about. got a car coming right behind you, sir. that's the issue. i mean, you are sharing the road with the few cars that are out and about this morning. and mainly if you have 4 we will drive you have a better chance. we've seen a lot of cars getting

stranded here and someone threw a snowball. that was close. we'll send it back to you from the pedestrian mall. >> two things that don't mix right now. one cars and pedestrian, two throwing a snowball at bob barnard and not expecting to get some retaliation. >> reporter: i'm about to drop this microphone. look at this guy. look at this guy. hey! two can play that game, baby. >> oh it's on. don't mess with bob. >> bob still has a good arm on him. don't mess with him. stay safe out there. you saw that play out right there. you have a young child in the street and they don't see a car coming. so just play it safe and stay home. >> it makes you nervous. stay home if you can. we want to check out things in alexandria where we've got the alexandria director of communications. good morning. >> what are you guys seeing?

has the snow stopped falling there just yet or is it still coming down? >> not quite like everywhere else in the region we have received very heavy snowfall. we've got 70 trucks out working in our 15-square-mile city to help clear the roads, but as you just saw the roads are still very dangerous. we're asking people to stay indoors, let the plows do their jobs. we ask when people are walking around that they do so on the sidewalks and not in the streets. and in particular we're also asking people to help keep their higher high drants clear because we already had one fire this morning. fortunately everything is okay but when firefighters have to try to find a hydrant and dig it out, it adds several minutes to the response time. so far things are doing fairly well here in alexandria. we appreciate everybody helping us out by staying inside and we're hoping to continue to make good progress on the snow removal. >> we don't like to get too far ahead of ourselves and ask questions that are the minds of many people and every time we hear alexandria and lots of

water, either in liquid or snow form, we wonder where is it going to go. we've already heard ocean city, maryland is having issues with flooding. are you worried about anything in alexandria? >> we have been monitoring the waterfront closely so far we have not seen any flooding and high tide was earlier this morning and we got through that without any issues. we are keeping an eye on it. at this time no issues with flooding. >> all right, moving forward what are we going to expect? >> well, we're just going to continue to work through our snow removal preorties which start with primary routes and secondary routes and then residential streets. so if you do live on a residential street, we probably won't be able to clear that today. that's why we've been asking people to sit tight with your family for a couple of days. we also want people to be prepared in the event the power goes out which is often a problem with these types of storms. so far people have been patient very supportive but we know

people get cabin fever as the storm goes on. we just ask people to hang in there. it takes a village to ride out a storm. >> have you been able to keep up with the pace of the snoesm so far? we have a few lulls but we have potentially another 8 hours of snow falling. >> we've been working for 24 hours for some time. we started pretreating the roads on tuesday. so we did get a good head start and we have been keeping pace to an extent. but of course we're not able to keep the roads clear down to bear pavement at this point. and that's why they remain very dangerous and we ask that people please not be driving until probably at least tomorrow if not after. >> all right craig fifer alexandria director of communications we thank you for your time. thanks again. >> i hope everybody stays safe down there. obviously no matter where you talk in the region, there is

snow. the question is how much. melanie has been keeping an eye on all things up to the north of the district. she's been standing in front of drifts that are about 15 feet high if not not taller. what do you have in your hand there? >> reporter: we've had to go to the extended version of the measuring stick or the measuring tape, as it were. and we know this is unscientific and we all laugh about it. but if that were in fact not a drift we would say that was about 20 inches there of snow. it does seem like it's slowed down a little bit and the winds are starting to change somewhat. they're still doing a fantastic job here clearing these parking lots. again these are private contractors so what you see here with this black pavement here is not at all indicative of what the roads are like around the area. montgomery county fire and rescue just saying even their own rescue vehicles are getting stuck and their response time is

slower. they're having to call plows and bring plows along to help get their rescue vehicles and their rescue folks to the people that need help. so you know, i know we've said it before. you just try to stay out of their way if you can. the giant is open. they have been fantastic, i've got to say. not a sponsor or anything like that. but it's always great. one of the things we love about snowstorms is as all of my other colleagues out there in this mess have experienced, it really does bring out the best in people, i think. and the folks are in there they're working. the pharmacist is there because sometimes people need their medicine and they've got a couple of cashiers people who probably would have probably rather stayed home with their families. we haven't seen that many people. maybe i would say no more than six, most of them coming -- i saw two people walking in and a couple of people coming in their vehicles. but even if you have a big four-wheel-drive, my photographer and i we had to help a guy in a jeep wrangler

dig out because he got a little overconfident and ended up with his wheels on one of the here snow banks and he just couldn't clear it. so you are going to find some trouble out here. walking around is not that pleasant. i've got to be honest with you. wait until it's not blowing in your face and hitting you all over the place nd then you can go out and have fun. talk to you guys in a bit. >> i drove jeep wranglers for years. they do get stuck. >> we're going to take a short break right now and well show you, here's a look at 270. anybody want to take a clans on that one? the correct answer should be a collective no. >> there's always that one. >> we'll see if they make it. stay home. enjoy the day today. spend it with us. >> yeah, we're here. keep us company.

we haven't checked in here national harbor. prince george's county, we're taking a look at the national harbor development there. heeding the word to stay off the road until the crews can get out and get them cleared off. looking good so far, national harbor way to go. >> shout out to everybody watching in prince george's county this morning, we've literally heard from people from ocean city to delaware, to maryland west virginia, all over the place. so thank you for watching. we do appreciate it. the reason we're hearing from everybody is because the whole thing that ties everybody together is snow. it's everywhere. caitlin roth is with us now. she is outside. we're looking at about a foot plus everywhere where people can hear us talk right caitlin? >> yes steve and maureen, how are you guys. >> we're good. glad to see you. >> i left here at 1:00 a.m. last night and it had been snowing all evening but we were only looking at snow totals at that point of about 6, 7, 8 inches

the whole area. from that time last night to when i got up at 8:00 this morning, it was like a foot on top of it. when you step outside and you see it it's awesome. outside here in northwest dc a solid foot to probably more like of the district. but we've got some other snow totals that are just amazing. i know we forecasted them in the order of 20 to 30 inches out there. i don't have a monitor out there but you can see the snow totals on your screen and i'll try to remember everything i looked up. ermly this morning we had a report of 14 inches at reagan national but got some reports that it's up a little higher than that, 16 inches of course you would expect that. dulles 23.5 snow so far. that gives credence to the big difference between the airports and you can see how much they're getting off towards our west. around frederick maryland, up towards gaithersburg where

melanie is you're talking in the order of 2 feet. leesburg, virginia over 2 feet of snow. bowie, maryland came in around 16 inches. we got our first 30 inches in winchester virginia. that's where the heavy snow is. so very very impressive totals. thank you to everyone who is sending in what you've got. the the wind the other half of the story and i would say we're finally seeing wind gusts over 30 miles per hour for just about everyone. so even though kind of took a while to get all the sustained winds going, they're here and we've got pliz ard conditions just about everywhere with the combination of the heavy snow and all the wind. temperatures too, it's still cold. we were kind of thinking maybe these temperatures would warm up closer to freezing. we did see an area, a really good area of some sleet late last night down in southern maryland, but for the most part we're all back at freeze can or well below freezing with temperatures in the 20s. lastly let's take a look at

radar. tucker and gary have been talking about this all morning where you see the heavier bands of snow, the brighter red out there on radar. and that's really intense snowfall that produced the thunder snow earlier, that brought the heavy snowfall 15789s quickly during the overnight hours and that is still falling in northern maryland in northern virginia just the areas north and west of us. montgomery county up further into west virginia too and that's going to extend up to pennsylvania by the way. a little bit lighter out here obviously. but we actually expect that heavy snow band to slide back down here before this whole storm winds down. and as far as that, that's probably not winding down until later this evening. so right now out here, it is very windy. it's definitely gusty and we're seeing a lot of the blowing and drifting. everyone who is plowing and shoveling the drifts will runl

all the work that you're doing. we're here for the rest of the afternoon and we'll continue to see the snow totals climb. steve and maureen i'll send it back to you guys. >> the totals are impressive it is something to behold we said textbook storm. that's what they've been calling it. lo and behold, that's what it is. >> melanie was trying to get up in the heavy equipment annie is going for the 4 by 4. >> she's making friends. >> it's a class reunion. >> i found shawn and scott from pittsburgh. i guess you guys were at home watching us just like the redskins fans, huh? >> oh yeah. they really wanted us to show the back of their car. they've got the steelers bumper sticker, and penguins. also i've got to tell you, steve what is up with this? they're nuts from pittsburgh

driving without windows. and he brought us a case of water so thank you very much for thinking of us. that's very nice of you. how is your neighborhood looking. >> bad. very bad. 2 feet of snow. not even plowed. >> reporter: they didn't even plow it once? >> no. >> reporter: did you shovel yourself out? >> no. >> reporter: it's a 4 wheel drive, i just drive out. >> in a few hours your back is going to hurt. >> i'm young. >> hey annie first of all, ask him if he bought my sold jeep because it was also blue like that with the same windows and i never plowed either. the second question is was he planning on going to the caps-pens game because that's the one they just cancelled. steve wants to know. >> the penguins game. no. >> you know it's cancelled. of course you knew. you did hear what he said when i asked him to shovel his

driveway, he said he's going to get his brother to do it. >> i heard his pittsburgh accent in that coming out there with the snow. >> reporter: he heard your pittsburgh accent coming out. >> we forced scott to get on the air with us. hey! let me tell you guys we are making friends out here and are you guys bonding at home like brothers. >> oh yeah. >> not killing each other. >> what are you eating at home these days? >> a lot of sandwiches. >> you guys are big guys. how bad is this? it hurts when it hits your face? >> a little bit. that's not what you were saying before we went on air. he was like man this hurts. i need a facial after this. >> look i don't even have any

windows. i know but you drove up the street. thank you so much for the water. mike and i will enjoy it. i hope you guys keep it locked to fox 5 if you have social media tag your pictures at home hash tag it #thewinterawakens. got it? >> yes. >> reporter: so we're getting visitors, we're having fun out here but in all seriousness, i'm happy to see not a lot of cars out here. vdot says they're going t continue this push mode to get rid of this snow. we've got the exxon open for plowers who worked hard. we talked to a guy who shoid up his snow blower ran out and gas and he said he's never seen anything like this before. back to you. >> just thanks so very much. hopefully they're safe back on their way. just to let people know too, that caps game tomorrow hasn't been canceled, it's been postponed but at this point they

haven't announced a make-up day for it. >> metro you probably know by now, it's not operating this entire weekend. if you wanted to get around via metro, not happening. i don't think the uber and cabs are doing much better. we're talking about the road conditions in dc, the mayor having a press conference just about an hour ago talking about the current blizzard conditions. she said the storm descended on the city but they are still in emergency respond mode right now. >> she also asked the public, as we have been telling you, to stay home. this is the mayor's words. stay home and stay out of harm's way. and the mayor says that means no walking or driving. the director of homeland security also spoke about the gravity of the situation. >> in this storm that we're in right now we are still very much in the emergent phase. we haven't gotten to the response phase as we look at it from the emergencies the storm is still happening we are still

in that time frame when real bad things can happen. >> there you have the officials talking about the conditions here in dc. they're expected to hold another press conference this afternoon. was it at 4:00? >> i don't recall the exact time. but it will be later this afternoon once we get a better idea of the situation. >> we will bring that to you as it happens. but again they're talking about stay off the roads. it can't be overemphasized, because we have seen some close calls. the cars can't stop as quickly as they normally can. so please be careful. i know it looks pretty and you might have a little bit of cabin fever, better safe than sorry. >> you know sometimes you get a rainy day on the weekend finally a chance catch up on the projects you haven't done. >> we're not going anywhere. we're going to be on through at least 8:00 tonight. at least through 8:00 tonight. if not continuous coverage throughout the day today. so hang out with us. feel free. we're working our social media

too. so if you want to tweet us, hit us up on facebook. we're happy to chat with you while we're getting through this together. when's the last time you saw 66 with no cars on it. >> can we make it like this every day? >> back after this. 11:27.

typically it takes us about 4 minutes into the news cast before we show you this picture yes we have not focused this much on capitol hill today. >> you know why? >> because we've got so many other awesome shots to show. >> we want to see your pictures. the hashtag says

#thewinterawakens. so we can find them and we can share them with all of our great viewers. >> and you'll be in good company because tons of people responding to the call for #thewinterawakens. we're trending folks, let's make this thing go global. >> thanks to everybody so far. the reason we're showing the capitol too the government the smithsonian part of the government. free access to museums pretty much every day of the year, except today and except tomorrow. all the facilities are closed. so if you are hoping to spend your snow day checking out a museum, not going to be able to do it. >> okay. good day to stay in. maybe watch a movie after you watch us. tucker barnes keeping us up to date. i know a lot of folks thinking we're at the tail of of end, not quite yet. >> not until 7:00 or 8:00 and this afternoon i'll be working on my dance scales. i'll be